I'm really starting to lose respect for....

What about his ghost writers.Rhymefest has said he wrote/co-wrote "jesus walks."
nesrock
317

elmacaco wrote:Quincy jones is a musician, he played trumpet for a long time. Teddy riley did a lot of his own composing as well.

People use producer to mean composer, but you'd be hard pressed to call any of these hip hop producers composers, they are managers, business managers, that's it. Saying it's so and so's song when they had little to do with actually writing it is ****. It is a legal scam that they have glossed over with the credibility of actual composers and musicians, which is what people actually hear when they hear producer. Making them out to somehow be more important than the musicians and artists is the same as saying the manager at a factory is responsible for the product, when you could fire him and still have product, but without workers, you got nothing.

Seriously, the music industry has contracts that are reminiscent of indentured servant contracts, no other industry gets away with that.

You can have a guy singing covers and he has more to do with the actual music than some of these so called producers. The top Producers that I know do their thing and control their operation while making their music. Easy Mo Be is a great guy, and does all his own ****, he can make a hit without am "executive producer" there to rape him. but the problem is the contacts and the money involved to start up a project, that's where the Executive producer get the credit, basically buys the credit for the music piece even though it is not his work at all.

I can't respect that, or people who fall for the fairy tale that makes these guys out to be musicians or worse "super musicians" because they can tell other players what they want and don't want.

I'm kinda gettin tired of all the children here, I don't mind helping people eager to grow, but when yall buy into all this **** and think there is any credibility when so many ghostwriters and session musicians played their soul into it, it really makes me worry that the soul of the whole thing is gone. Man, they are just people, the media hype makes you think they are something so **** great, they are just damn people!! With enough money, anyone can be a producer like these guys. All they had to do was know someone and get that money, all of a sudden they are virtuosos of a genre.

give me a break.

Dawg.... i feel you.... i really do man, thas kinda where i was goin wit it... I mean it's different when u call yo boy over to play a bassline on his bass guitar.... or maybe call ur boy to add a couple piano riffs over your song, but dam* when u got 25 musicians all playing over a 4 bar drum loop, why should you be credited as such a great beat maker?

Once again Elmacaco, you've hit it right on the head....


"..it really makes me worry that the soul of the whole thing is gone.."


Soooooo True

elmacaco wrote: Making them out to somehow be more important than the musicians and artists is the same as saying the manager at a factory is responsible for the product, when you could fire him and still have product, but without workers, you got nothing.

Workers without a manger will turn in a less satisfactory product, the manager position exists for a reason, the factory turns out a better product more efficiently due to effective mangement.

I can understand where ya'll are comin' from but again I argue the fact that the top producers in the game are the top producers for a reason. The artists that Dre work with have done other projects, why is it that they can't seem to recreate that hit that Dre stole? Now the Executive Producer has a whole different job than the producer of a particular track but I won't get into that.

I'll use a different genre of music as an example, all the top recording acts in the world work with producers, the producer may not touch an instrument at all but he is, none the less, the producer of the record. Take Metallica for instance, they obviously are all excellent musicians but they still hire a producer to produce their tracks, why?

Now it's obvious that we're just gonna have to agree to disagree but I'm all in favor of creating a new "title" for the liner notes such as:

Beat: such and such
Production Supervisor: such and such

Why do really care what so and so did or didn't do. Its so funny when your looking from the outside in. I feel when threads like this get started somebody is studing somebody else production a little to hard. Do what you feel is right for yourself and worry what otheres do a little less and everything will alright and if not then sale your equipment and start collecting stamps or something. This game is 10 percent talent and 90 percent buisness. What do your really know about it from that point of view.

like smoove said, a producer is in charge of getting the whole thing together, and if that means hiring people then that's what you do...Mannie Fresh does it, Kanye does it, Dre does, Quincy Jones did it, Isaac Hayes did it, Gamble and Huff did it...ain't nothing new

I understand where Elmacco and some of you others are coming from, and if you read Kanye West article in Scratch he has been in the game for years and he used to not sample anything too popular like Jackson 5, or make mainstream type music. He had underground rules for himself that he followed for years and it got him nowhere. I know from listening to Kanye's shit that and hearing his story that he loves this music just as much as any of us and he worked hella hard. Basically I think the best music is a compromise between accessibility to the masses and being creative, as I've said before I could make some creative a$$ $hit that I love all day and everybody would be like what the fuk is that. What it boils down to is good music, and wether or not you choose to be underground or not is your own choice, but if you do choose to be underground and purposely not make shit for the radio, then why bitchh and complain about it??? That was your choice!!! And I'm not saying there ain't no whack $hit on the radio cuz there is but if you want something better on the radio then make that $hit and put in the work you gotta put in to make it in this game.

And all them producers hire people to play shit if I had the money I would hire a guitar player, I don't play the **** guitar I produce/ make beats whatever you call it, In the end I'm a be the one that writes the hook puts the drums, effects and bassline on the $hit to make it bang,

Skiggy wrote:Basically I think the best music is a compromise between accessibility to the masses and being creative, as I've said before I could make some creative a$$ $hit that I love all day and everybody would be like what the fuk is that. What it boils down to is good music, and wether or not you choose to be underground or not is your own choice, but if you do choose to be underground and purposely not make **** for the radio, then why bitchh and complain about it??? That was your choice!!! And I'm not saying there ain't no whack $hit on the radio cuz there is but if you want something better on the radio then make that $hit and put in the work you gotta put in to make it in this game.

for REAL!

Elmalco...I typically see eye-to-eye with your post. But, your definition of an "Executive Producer" is a little twisted. An executive producer acquires the funding/equity/negotiations to get a project off the ground and running.

I've acted as an executive producer for several projects. During the creation of each of these projects, I never touched a dial or fader. I DID make sure that the songwriters, musicians, and engineers were paid on time. The only time I voiced and opinion on the product was when it was time to rate and approve/disapprove the project before it goes to manufacture (of which came out of my pocket as well). My reward for the risk, a percentage of the ownership of the masters.

Once again, I value your post...

45

Also, a great producer is a valued part of any project...A crappy producer ain't worth shyt...But, politics can get you in a situation where you get assigned a bs producer.

Also, many engineers (i.e. Bob Powers) never recieved producer credit for the many projects where they served as the ring leader to help the beat maker and the artists to create something that the public will buy.

But, the music biz is what it is...A corporate entity that's out to make money by any means...But the art suffers!

45

WORD!

yea 45,

in my recording arts class the other day we were talking about engineers and how sometimes nowadays the engineer will ask for not only an up front fee, but will also ask to be given a point or two on the record...
the first thing that came to my mind when i heard this was Bob Powers...
i wonder if he got any points on the many classic lps he has worked on...

just thought id throw my 2 cents in....

in my recording arts class the other day we were talking about engineers and how sometimes nowadays the engineer will ask for not only an up front fee, but will also ask to be given a point or two on the record...
the first thing that came to my mind when i heard this was Bob Powers...
i wonder if he got any points on the many classic lps he has worked on...

Nah, Bob Powers never received producer credit for his early work with Tribe Called Quest, D'Angelo, Me'shell, the Roots, etc....Now he is. He's shown how valuable his skills and knowledge are in making a song evolve into a hot record.

[quote="cooocooo1"]
Workers without a manger will turn in a less satisfactory product, the manager position exists for a reason, the factory turns out a better product more efficiently due to effective mangement.

Not true, as it depends how you define efficiency and better product. Management has destroyed as many products (and companies) as it has helped, which takes the score to zero. Some companies management end up trying to get better value for the stockholders than making a better product. That is why we are still on oil and better products like solar power are shelved. The Soviets believed efficiency was providing for the workers, employment benefits, etc. which in many cases did build better products, especially in the arts and sports (Chess anyone But the pointit that efficiency is defined differently in many cases. The efficiency of minimum investment, maximum profit is purely the definition of the stockholder, which benefits those with the most stock a hell of a lot more than those with a few thousand shares.

They sell you that one share so you adopt their priorities.

Also, pop music wasn't always about leading sheep. The music of the 80's was inventive, original, and commercilly viable, making many people millionaires. But that resembles a meritocracy too much, although it is a better product. We also have been lulled into believing that the rich deserve their wealth, which is based purely on the fact that we believe one day we might be rich, and we feel entitled to that, so we feel we deserve it, when the fact of the matter is 90% of people die in the tax bracket we were born in, and the hope of wealth is just the carrot they dangle infront of us to keep hauling their lazy asses to the bank.

There are many instances where a better product was made with the abscence of management. Stradivarious violins were made by a craftsman. Most technical inventions (AC power, the radio, plastics, the RECORD!!!, analog synthesizers) were made by an individual or a small group of people (7 in the case of radio, 5 in the case of plastic) which formed the basis of large corporations that stayed in business by stopping people from building better products on the inventions of the small groups (who often didn't get a share of the massive profits and even more who ended their own lives) the competition which would have created vastly better products and even greater efficiency of both types. That is true capitalism, and I ask you again who is protected by copyright and patent laws. Again we fall prey to the belief that it is someone like us or someone whom we hope to be. You know that thing you sign before you get a job? Well it often says that they own the patent to any ideas you have, on or off the clock, while you are working for that company. Also when you rent a place to live, any improvements you make belong to the owner, and removing them is against the law. Again protecting the rich. I don't care how rich I get, I will never agree that these institutions protect the people, they just protect the money, and those who have most of it, and fock everyone else.

We have limited resources, money doesn't grow on trees, so I ask you, how many poor people does it take to make a rich person? It's a zero sum game. Just look at the number of millionaires in this country throughout the decades, the more million and billionaires there are, the more people living below the poverty line we have. It is simple math.

I hear you 45, you're on point, but you are a scupulous Executive producer, as you gave the writers the credit (I assume?) you didn't say it was your song that you wrote from your heart and pay them hush money.

Again, people are falling prey to the semantics of it. QUincy jones has albums where hew is the songwriter musician, and there's Thriller, which in no way minimizes Michaels role or Quincy's. But people like the image of the artist, so record company's produce an artist, and make his music for him so the allure is still there, while making the fast food of the music world.

Also to the "from the outside" comment Are you on the inside? then how would you know? You are just falling prey to their fairytale. And you assume incorrectly, I am currently on "the inside" that's all I'll say.

I heard a great quote today, One rank ameture built the Ark, and a team of professionals built the Titanic.